Hate Poem
Julia Sheehan
I hate you. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.
Look out! Fore! I hate you.
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I'm digging
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.
A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.
My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant "good morning": hate.
You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.
from PLEIADES, vol. 24:2
Central Missouri State Press
Love
Martha Silano
with apologies to Julie Sheehan
I hate your kneecaps floating free
in their salty baths. I hate your knees,
both of them, and I hate your eyelashes,
especially the ones that fall out, the ones
you're supposed to wish on; I wish you
bad wishes. I hate every hair
on your hairy face, hate you as much
as I hate being put on hold,
thank you for your patience
when I have none, when patience
is as far away as my first grade teacher's
if you have nothing nice to say. . .
Your mushroom risotto: hate it.
The salmon you're defrosting: hate.
My vowels hate you.
My adverbs hate you. The backyard
hates you--the backyard with all its abandoned
dump trucks, with the giant hole our son dug
all summer while soaker hoses soaked. That hole
and all holes, including the hole in the ozone,
which of course keeps getting bigger.
Spaghetti wrapping around a fork.
Mashed spinach and carrots caught
in the rungs of a high chair, stuck
to the floor like dried green paint: hate,
hate, hate. Each furry rabbit a little furry ball
of hate. Each blackberry a messy drupe of drippy hate.
At the China Palace the plates piled high with Mu Shu
Hate, the plates now a busboy's burden of hate,
the only sound the dumpster's clanging hate hate hate.
from The Cincinnati Review
